TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Evening Star, Issue 11456, 25 January 1901, Page 5

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

[From Oct. Special Correspondent.]

LONDON, December 14.

EARL RUSSELL'S NEWEST ROLE. Earl Russell must be tolerably well acquainted with the atmosphere of the Divorce Court by this time, but ho did not put in an appearance there last Tuesday. Nor were " Giddy " and " Babs" on the premises upon the present occasion. For once, indeed, both were "out of the show," though Countess, Russell's " turn" is, I hear, soon to come. The petitioner on Monday was Mr G. J. Somerville, husband of the lady who recentlydivorced her husband in America, and then married Earl Rnssell. The process was not exactly a novelty. Prior to wedding Mr Somerville the lady had espoused a Mr Watson, bub finding him unsatisfactory had divorced him. iHer grown-up son by this union seems, curiously enough, to have viewed her matrimonial escapades with composure, and rather helped her than not to become Countess Russell. Of course, however, the American divorce and marriage did not make the excellent Mrs Somerville an English countess, as the Earl discovered wheu he brought his wife to Amberley Cottage. Some English people have not last all sense of decency yet. The story of this divorce is that of a mean and treacherous act, and will rob Lord Russell of any public sympathy hitherto felt for him. According to counsel the case was an extremely simple one. Respondent, whose maiden name was Cook, formerly became the wife of a Mr James Watson, whom she married in Scotland, and they lived together until she divorced her husband, according to Scotch law, by reason of his adultery. After that she inter-married with the petitioner in this case on 23rd July. 1889, and there had been two children of the marriage. The}- lived in Scotland for two years, and then Sir Somerville, who was an electrical engineer by profession, thought there was a better opening for him in England, abandoned his Scotch home, and came to this country, and they lived in England for some time" afterwards". In 1898 Mr and Mts Somerville were very much interested in municipal life, espeeially in the candidature of Progressives on the School Board. They took an interest in the candidature of Lord "Russell for the London County Council, and in thnt way saw a great deal of the co-respondent's society. Karl Russell visited them, and they used to stay the week-end with him at Amberley Cottage, near Maidenhead. In tho summer of 1899 Mrs Somerville, who said she was suffering from a heart affection, went to stay with her children at a cottage near Maidenhead, rented for the co-respondent. In July of that year the children were brought back, and then Mrs Somerville, who had previously written affectionate and kind letters to her husband, disappeared, and the next petitioner heard of her was that she had married Earl Russell in America. He made inquiries, and learned that they were coming back, and he had observation kept upon them, and found that, on arrival, they went first of all to Lord Russell's house in Maidenhead, and lived there as man and wife, passing as the Earl and Countess Russell. The co-respon-dent also had chambers in Gray's Inn road, and it was found that he took the lady there. While this suit was pending, petitioner was an applicant for a post in Glasgow at a salary of £6OO a year, but lost it on his mentinning to the people, as he thought it his duty to do, that he was concerned in these proceedings.

Evidence, in support of the petitioner having been given, the jury found for the petitioner, and assessed the damages at £1,500. A decree nisi was pronounced with cost*. HOW OUR NATIONAL TREASURES ARE GUARDED. The man who stole the Nelson relics from the Painted Hall at Greenwich Hospital last Saturday must be related to the creature who broke open his grandmother's coffin in order to steal the dead woman's gold-mounted false teeth. His was in truth an act of sacrilege as well as of theft, and it is to be hoped that the police may be able to lay hands on his person in order that some punishment fitting the crime may be inflicted. That the police will be able to recover the stolen goods is almost too much to hope, for the perpetrator of the robbery appears only to have taken those articles ■which have a. melting pot value. The authorities are so reticent about the matter that we do not at present know the full extent of our loss, but it is certain that the thief got away with Nelson's watch and seal, the oval gold box presented to the great admiral with the freedom of London, the gold sword hilt, the jewels, medals, and orders, and that his ruthless fingers tore eff the gold mountings of the sword sheath. Evidently, therefore, the man wax out for plunder pure and simple. To him the coat worn at the battle of the Nile was au oid coat and nothing more—a garment u]>on which his friend the Jew fence wouldn't lend him sufficient to repay the trouble of removal. So with the waistcoat worn at Trafalgar, the breeches and stockings, the velvet stock, the pigtail out off after the hero's death, and many other little articles connected with the everyday life of our national idol.

How was the robbery effected? Nobody knows to it certainly. Daily during daylight and on Sunday afternoons the public arc. admitted to the Painted Hall. The cases containing the Nelson relics are at the further end, or in the Upper Hall, aa it is called. The custodians of the hall" are three old pensioners. They do not reside nn Ihe premises, and last Saturday, as is their wont at. this season of the year, they shut up the building and took the keys to the police lodge at the Royal Naval College, some two hundred yards away. At two o'clock on Sunday afternoon they reopened the Painted Hall, and the loss was then discovered. Probably the thief secreted himself in one of the numerous recesses in the building on Saturday afternoon, and commenced his nefarious selection of portable relics of intrinsic value the moment the pensioners had gone, and under cover of darkness got through one of the windows overlooking an adjoining roof, whence le descended to earth by a water pipe, vaulting tho low railings* of the Hospital, and disappearing in the maze of Greenwich's streets. Tho robbery was a simple affair, but it would be highly interesting to know why the Hospital authorities considered it unnecessary to provide the security of a sife for these national treasures. They s em to have taken no precautions against ( jther fire, or thieves. The latter, they perJ Ips imagined, would be prevented by"sentiment, but sentiment is no protector agaiust fire, and it seems to' outsiders that the least the guardians of the relics should have done would have been to provide a safe in which tho mementoes of Nelson could have been placed during those hours when tho Painted Hall is without guardians of any hind.. "SAVAGES" PAST AND PRESENT. The smart annual banquet of the Savage Club last Saturday at the Hotel Cecil was a wondrous contrast to the little room with a sanded floor in Haxell's Hotel where I first was made acquainted with this interesting " cercle." Most of the mebers then sported long clay pipes, and were not too particular about their cuffs and " dickeys.'' A member possessed of a " clean boiled rag " was modestly proud of it and justly annoyed if a brother Savage pretended to flick cigar ash over its immaculate front. The Saturday ovening sing-songs were—well, broad us they were long, and the stories Prussian blue. That was Bohemia,! But tempora mutantur, etc. The 100 smug Savages who dined exquisitely at the Hotel Cecil ou Saturday had no connection with the club's makers. Here and there one came upon a grand old relic like the evergreen K. J. Orlell. but the veterans are dying fast now, very fast. Sir William Precce, tho eminent scientist, presided, and (contrary '.a Savage tradition) there was a speech list a yard long. The new Lord Chief Justice was "star" of the evening, ami proposed "The Club." After a few preliminary compliments he. said that the Savages numbered among their members many distinguished representatives of the dramatic profession, and early in its history the club received nn honor which he believed none other had obtained. Such was the ability of tho few who assembled in that remote part of the City that in 1860, there being a need for that charitable effort which had always

distinguished tne memDers 01 the club, they gave <t performance at the Lyceum, which was honored by the presence of the Queen, the Prince Consort, and the Prince whose loss they still mourned—the Duke of Edinburgh.—(Hear, hear!) At that, time he was a boy and had just left school, but he remembered tho occasion, for he happened to know some who took part in the performance—Planchc, Talfoui-d, H. J. Hymn, and the two Broughs. The programme consisted of ' The .School for Scandal' and ' The l'orty Thieves,' the hitter written for the occasion, and also some verses bv a. Savage, iviucli ha would like to be able to find so as to have them recorded. Five vears latw, at the time of the great cotton famine crisis, tlie club went to Manchester to perform 'Valentine and o™,' and obtained letween £6OO and £7OO for the distressed operatives in Lancashire. Again, but a few years ago, the club gave a remarkable performance for the Prince of Wales's Hospital fund. Indeed, the club had a very distinguished connection with the stage" and he was sure it would be a great privilege fur any rising young actor to be a member. He would remind them of another occasion —of a speech which at the time made a great impression. It was a birthday dinner of the club in 1878, presided over by George Augustus Sala- Mr Gladstone attended as one of the principal guests, and made one of the finest and one of the most humorous speeches in proposing tho toast of literature that the club had ever been privileged to listen to. In 1882 Royalty again honored them, when the Prince of Wales was elected an honorary member. Among other arts, the club had always supported music/ and in response to a suggestion of the Prince a Savage Club scholarship was instituted at the Royal College of Music. It was a gratification to him to see in the chair so admirable a public servant and so gTeat a scientific man as Sir William Preece. There was an idea that Marconi was the inventor of wireless telegraphy, but a long time ago Sir William had practised it. lie (Lord Alverstone) was then endeavoring to make a simple scientific explanation at a public meeting. Sir William was sitting at the end of the room, and the expression cu his face communicated to him that he was making a fool of himself.—(Laughter.) Moreover, so receptive was the condition of the audience that everybody else saw it simply from the expression of Sir William's face.—(Renewed laughter.) His wireless telegraphy was now operating in a different manner, and h3 would say : When Precco o'er the club his wireless smiles extend, Let mirth begin and melancholy end. —(Cheers.)

THE DREYFUS CASE REDIYIVUS.

The French Chamber of Deputies proposes to include the name of ex-Colonel Picquart in the Ammesty Bill brought forward bv the Government, with a view to burying'once for all the dry bones of the Dreyfus case. But the colonel very properly objects. He has not been guilty of felony, treason, forgery, or making use of forgeries, and naturally he feels disinclined to have his name tabulated with people who have been guilty of these crimes in connection with the Dreyfus case, and in whose favor the Bill is to be passed. The decision of the Court, indictments absolved Colonel Picquart of the charges brought against him in the affair Dreyfus, and he therefore stands in no need of Governmental absolution of foregivenrss. But his protests against inclusion in the Bill are hardly likely to be taken seriously, for 'lie ex-colone! has many enemies in" high places, and they will take good care not- to allow such a chance to "smudge his character to pass by. To the French historian of a hundred years hence Colonel Picquart's career may be shadow;-, but one fact will stand out clearly—namely, that he was a person who wasamniestied'in connection with the trial of a traitor named Dreyfus.

A SMACK FOR STEAD. T'.' Ihe vilification of the British troops employed in the South African campaign no man has been more prominent than Mr W. T. Stead. Recently this peculiar creature was at gieat pains to circulate a manifesto purporting to be the work of a British officer. It contained a series of the foulest calumnies against our soldiers, and many of its. recipients have replied to Mr Stead in language which, if his cuticle is not that uf a rhinoceros, must have made the " good man'' feci anything but happy. Stead favored Sir Frederick Milner, M.P., with one of his broad-sheet*, and asked Sir Frederick's opinion thereon. He gave it freely, not only to Mr' Stead, but to the Press, in his letter Sir Frederick says : "My opinion is that you ought to be ashamed of yourself for circulating so vile a slander against your fellow-countrymen. You seem to"have marie it your mission in life to vilify your country, and to slander the bravo men who have suffered and borne so much for their country. It, seems to me a pity that you do not remove yourself to France, and offer your service? to the gutter Press, where they would undoubtedly be appreciated. As'to the letter of 'A British Officer,' I decline to believe that any British officer could so demean himself as to spread so gross a. calumny against his fellow-soldier; without having' the courage to put his name at the end of it. If. indeed, any British officer has stooped so low, I can only say that he is ;i contemptible cowand, and I should like to have the opportunity of teiling him so to his face : but in my opinion the ' British Officer' does nqt live far from the office.? of Mr W. T. Stead. Personally I prefer to telieve the testiraony of Lord Roberts. Sir Redvers Bulkr, and other brave general:* as to the condtict of our soldiers in South Africa.. I don't know if you have taken the trouble to read Lord Roberts's touching farewell to his troops, wheu he speaks of the gallantry, the patient endurance, the good conduct, and humanity of our brave soldiers. If you have read it. and it has not made you" feel ashamed of yourself, I fear nothing will." For Sir Frederick Milner's reply to the man Stead wc give him thanks. * Tn any other country he would have found the inside of a prison long ago. but here we don't care to give such people the chance of posing as martyrs. Yet some punishment is surely duc to men of his kidney, and in Mr Stead's case it has been sugges-ted that, rough justice be meted out quite easily by boycotting all publications with which he is' concerned. No one ought to object to honest criticism openly made, but Stead and his cjang are not honest. They pass over Lord Roberta's tribute to his troops in silence, but give the widest, publicity to vile stories against our soldiers without making the faintest attempt to inquire into the bona fides of the men who supply these abominable partis. Consider just one little story which was circulated widely by the Steaditcs—namely, that of the rape of Dutch women by troopers- near Dundee. It was as circumstantial as need be. but though the names of the dishonored women were given no attempt was made Instead and Co. to verify the yam. nor did they express the faintest suspicion as to its truth. On the contrary, they put it forward as gospel, and made it a peg whereon to hang sermons on the iniquity of Tommy Atkins and his officers. Other people, however, did take the trouble to'make inquiries on the spot, and they discovered that there was not one grain of truth in the story, and the father-in-law "of one of the alleged victims swore an affidavit to the effect that the woman had been in his house at the time of the f-upposcd outrage, and that no British troops had ever been within five miles of the house. But the Stead gang continue to circulate this and similar stories as evidence of the British soldiers' vileness.